GRC Report Staff

ASIC has published Form 5107 (version dated 2 April 2024), which is used to notify ASIC when the responsible entity of a registered managed investment scheme changes through retirement or removal. The current responsible entity must lodge within 2 business days of the members' resolution, and late fees apply. Compliance teams at responsible entities and incoming operators need to prepare consents, meeting documents, and signatures in advance to avoid lodgement failures.

ASIC has released an updated Form 405 (dated 23 March 2026) that foreign companies registered in Australia must use to verify their annual financial statements. The form now references ASIC Corporations (Foreign Licensees and ADIs) Instrument 2026/121, which conditions relief for foreign AFS licensees and foreign ADIs on lodging financial statements under s601CK(1) together with an auditor's report. Compliance teams should confirm that their lodgement processes and templates align with the revised form and relief conditions.

CMA Chair Doug Gurr used a keynote speech to reaffirm three commitments: a stable and predictable regulatory regime, continued process improvement through the "4Ps" (pace, predictability, proportionality, and process), and greater transparency. The speech is not new binding regulation. It signals that merger control, digital markets, and consumer protection enforcement will remain active but targeted, so compliance teams should align engagement and controls with these priorities.

EIOPA argues that lower Solvency II capital charges for securitizations, effective January 2027, will not by themselves drive insurer investment, because product design, data quality, and asset-liability matching are the main constraints. It also warns that the proposed safeguards for unfunded credit protection in synthetic securitizations do not adequately address systemic and policyholder-protection risks. Compliance teams at insurers and banks should prepare for possible changes to the Securitisation Regulation while monitoring the trilogue outcome.

ASIC's Form 5109 is the notification a temporary responsible entity (RE) must lodge under s601FQ(4) of the Corporations Act 2001 when it asks to add a new responsible entity to a registered managed investment scheme. It matters to compliance teams because it is part of the governance process for scheme transitions after a court-appointed temporary RE. Lodgement errors or omissions could delay the transition or create regulatory exposure.

ASIC's Form 5210 lets a corporate collective investment vehicle (CCIV), its corporate director, or a sub-fund liquidator apply to voluntarily deregister a sub-fund. Eligibility is limited to sub-funds with no assets or liabilities and no related legal proceedings. If the sub-fund is the CCIV's only sub-fund, deregistration also deregisters the CCIV, so compliance teams should confirm the full consequences before lodging.

An ECB Occasional Paper (No 399) analyzes revisions to output gap and potential growth estimates from the European Commission, Eurosystem, IMF, and OECD. It finds that real GDP data revisions and potential growth revisions drive most output gap revisions, and that real-time slack estimates are unreliable. This is a research publication, not a binding rule, but compliance and risk teams that rely on macroeconomic inputs in models, stress tests, and planning should treat it as a caution on model risk.